Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)
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The Kingdom of Hungary existing from 1919 to 1946 was a de facto country under Regent Miklós Horthy officially representing the abdicated Hungarian monarchy. Attempts by Charles IV Apostolic King of Hungary to return to the throne were prevented by threats of war from neighbouring countries, and by lack of support from Horthy (see Charles IV of Hungary's conflict with Miklós Horthy). The Kingdom of Hungary was an Axis Power during World War II, but in 1944 the state was occupied by Nazi Germany and replaced by a briefly-existing puppet state called the Hungarian State. And finally, after the World War II it was in the Soviet's sphere of interest, and the Kingdom was dissolved when the Republic was established in 1946.
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After the pullout of occupation forces of Romania in 1920, the country went into civil conflict, with Hungarian anti-communists and monarchists violently purging the nation of communists, leftist intellectuals and others they felt threatened by, especially Jews. Later in 1920, a coalition of right-wing political forces united and returned Hungary to being a constitutional monarchy. Selection of the new King was delayed due to civil infighting, and decided to select a regent to represent the monarchy. Former Austro-Hungarian navy admiral Miklós Horthy was chosen as regent who would remain its head of state until its downfall.
Some have considered Horthy's rule as Regent as being a dictatorship though others have pointed out that all of Horthy's powers were a continuation of the constitutional powers of the King of Hungary adopted during Hungary's presence in its federation with Austria years prior.[1] As Regent, Horthy had the power to adjourn or dissolve parliament at his own discretion and had the personal power of being able to appoint a Prime Minister.[2]
The first ten years of the reinstated kingdom witnessed increased repression of Hungarian minorities. Limits on the number of Jews permitted to go to university were placed, corporal punishment was legalized. Under the leadership of Prime Minister István Bethlen democracy dissipated as Bethelen manipulated elections in rural areas which allowed his political party, the Party of Unity to win repeated elections. Bethlen pushed for the revision of the Treaty of Trianon. After the collapse of the Hungarian economy from 1929 to 1931, national turmoil pushed Bethlen to resign as Prime Minister.
Social conditions in the kingdom did not improve as time passed, with extremely small percentages of the population controlling much of the country’s wealth. Jews were continually pressured to assimilate into Hungarian mainstream culture.
The desperate situation forced Regent Horthy to accept far-right politician Gyula Gömbös to become Prime Minister on the condition that he pledged to retain the existing political system. Gömbös agreed to abandon his extreme anti-Semitism and allow some Jews into the government.
In power, Gömbös pursued moving Hungary into being a one-party government like that of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. However pressure by Nazi Germany for extreme anti-Semitism forced Gömbös out and afterwards Hungary pursued intense anti-Semitism with its “Jewish Laws”. Initially, laws were passed limiting the number of Jews to 20 percent in a number of professions. Later Jews were scapegoated for the country’s failing economy and were deported to concentration camps.
In 1944, responding to the advancing Soviet forces, Regent Miklos Horthy deposed the last fascist Prime Minister and installed an anti-Fascist regime in order to join the allies and avoid occupation by the Soviet Union. Shortly afterward, German forces waged war on Hungary and deposed Horthy as Regent and installed a puppet regime led by Ferenc Szálasi of the anti-Semitic fascist Arrow Cross Party.
Upon the kingdom's establishment, the country suffered from economic decline, budget deficits, and high inflation as a result of the loss of economically-important territories as induced by the Treaty of Trianon[3]. The land losses of the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 caused Hungary to lose agricultural and industrial areas making it dependent on exporting what agricultural land it had left to maintain its economy. Prime Minister István Bethlen's government dealt with the economic crisis by seeking large foreign loans which allowed the country achieve monetary stabilization in the early 1920s followed by the introduction in 1925 of a new currency, the pengő.[4] Industrial and farm production rose rapidly and the country benefited from flourishing foreign trade during most of the 1920s.[3]
Following the start of the Great Depression in 1929, previous economic prosperity collapsed in the country, especially in part due to the economic effects of the failure of the Österreichische Creditanstalt bank in Vienna, Austria.[5]
From the mid-1930s to the 1940s, with relations improved with Germany, Hungary’s economy benefited from trade with Germany, though the Hungarian economy became dependent on the German economy to sustain itself.
Initially, despite a move back towards nationalism, the new state under Regent Horthy agreed to ending the chance for further immediate conflicts and signed the Treaty of Trianon on June 4, 1920. Trianon reduced Hungary’s size substantially from its size in Austria-Hungary. Transylvania was taken by Romania; Slovakia became part of Czechoslovakia, Vojvodina joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia after 1929) and corpus separatum of Fiume it is created Free State of Fiume
With the succession of increasingly nationalist and far-right Prime Ministers, Hungary steadily moved to opposing the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary moved towards alliance with Europe's two fascist states at the time, Germany and Italy, which both opposed the borders of Europe as defined at the end of World War I. Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini sought alliance with Hungary in the belief that a stronger Hungary would be mutually beneficial for both countries, beginning with the signing of a treaty of friendship between Hungary and Italy on April 5, 1927.[6] This foreign policy was especially the case under the premiership of Gyula Gömbös, who was an open admirer of fascist leaders, such as Adolf Hitler and Mussolini.[7] Gömbös was instrumental in attempting to forge trilateral unity between Germany, Italy, and Hungary, by acting as an intermediary between Germany and Italy whose two fascist regimes had nearly come to conflict in 1934 over the issue of Austrian independence, in which Gömbös eventually persuaded Mussolini to accept Hitler's ambition to annex Austria to Germany in the late 1930s.[6] It is even believed that Gömbös coined the phrase "axis" which he applied to his intention to seek alliance with Germany and Italy, which those two countries used to term their alliance as the Rome-Berlin axis.[7] Immediately prior to the Second World War, Hungary benefited from its close ties with Germany and was allowed to annex parts of former Slovak territories and Carpatho-Ukraine from Czechoslovakia. This agreement was the first of the Vienna Awards.
In 1940, the Kingdom of Hungary joined the Axis powers and demanded the concession of Transylvanian territory from Romania. German Führer Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime helped Hungary receive significant portions of Transylvania while avoiding a war with Romania. However, Hitler demanded that the Hungarian government follow Germany’s military and racial agenda in order to avoid potential conflict in the future. Anti-Semitism was already an established political cause by the far-right in Hungary and the Hungarian government aided Nazi Germany in the deportation of Jews to concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Hungary joined Germany and Italy in their invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. Hungary was allowed to annex the Bačka (Bácska) region in Vojvodina with Hungarian relative majority, as well as the regions of Prekmurje and Medjimurje that had a large Slovenian and Croatian majority respectively. Other ambitions such as those on Croatia were halted by the creation of the Independent State of Croatia and Nazi Germany’s alliance with Romania against the Soviet Union. Fearing a potential turn of support to the Romanians, the Hungarian government sent a number of soldiers to help the German campaign against the Soviet Union. This cost the Hungarian army large losses in their participation in the Battle of Stalingrad.
By 1944, with Soviet forces progressing west against the German army, Hungary switched sides to the Allies to avoid impending occupation. Germany responded immediately by occupying Hungary and a new puppet state called the Hungarian State briefly continued the war on Germany’s side.
Under Soviet occupation, the fate of the kingdom was already determined and the kingdom was formally dissolved in 1946 and replaced by a provisional government to be followed with the creation of a communist Hungarian state.
